USA > Maryland > Talbot County > History of Talbot county, Maryland, 1661-1861, Volume II > Part 29
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"Thank God," then exclaimed Frank, with a burst of honest feeling, "it was not your pride, cursed pride, and I may still think of Perdita as a true tender-hearted girl; it was a pleasant spot in my memory," he continued, dashing away a tear, "and I hated to have it crossed with a black line."
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Mrs. Liston improved all that remained of her mother's absence in detailing some particulars, not necessary to relate, by which it appeared that notwithstanding she had dispensed with the article of love in her marriage (we crave mercy of our fair young readers), her husband's virtue and indulgence had matured a sentiment of affection, if not as romantic, yet quite as safe and enduring as a youthful passion. She assured Stuart that she regarded him as the means of all her happiness. "Not a day passes," she said, raising her beautiful eyes to heaven, "that I do not remember my generous deliverer, where alone I am permitted to speak of him." The old lady now rejoined them, bringing her grand- child in her arms. Frank threw down his crutch, forgot his wounds, and permitted his full heart to flow out in the caresses he lavished on his little namesake.
The governor redeemed Stuart's schooner, and made such representa- tions before the admiralty court of Stuart's merits, and the ill treatment he had received from the commander of the frigate, that the court ordered the schooner to be refitted and equipped and permitted to proceed to sea at the pleasure of Captain Stuart. He remained for several days domesticated in the governor's family, and treated by every member of it with a frank cordiality suited to his temper and merits. Every look, word and action of Mrs. Liston expressed to him that his singular serv- ice was engraven on her heart. He forebore even to allude to it, and with his characteristic magnanimity, never inquired directly or indirectly her family name. He observed a timidity and apprehensiveness in her manner, that resulted from a consciousness that she had, however reluctantly, practiced a fraud on her husband, and he said that having felt how burdensome it was to keep a secret from his commander for a short voyage, he thought it was quite too heavy a lading for the voyage of life.
The demonstrations of gratitude which Stuart received from Governor Liston and his family, he deemed out of all proportion to his services, and being more accustomed to bestow than to receive, he became rest- less, and as soon as his schooner was ready for sea he announced his departure, and bade his friends farewell. He said the tears that Per- dita (he always called her Perdita) shed at parting, were far more precious to him than all the rich gifts she had bestowed on him.
At the moment Stuart set his foot on the deck of the vessel, the Ameri- can colours, at the governor's command were hoisted. The generous sympathies of the multitude were moved, and huzzas from a thousand voices rent the air. Governor Liston and his suite and most of the merchant vessels then in port, escorted the schooner out of the harbour. Even the stern usages of war cannot extinguish that sentiment in the bosom of man, implanted by God, which leads him to do homage to a brave and generous foe.
Captain Stuart continued to the end of the war, to serve his country with unabated zeal, and, when peace was restored, the same hardy spirit that had distinguished him in perilous times made him foremost in bold adventure.
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He commanded the second American trading vessel that arrived at Canton after the peace; and this vessel with which he circumnavigated half the globe, was a sloop of eighty tons, little more than balf the size of the largest now used for the river trade. This adventure will be highly estimated by those who have been so fortunate as to read the merry tale of Dolph Heilegher, and who remember the prudence mani- fested at that period by the wary Dutchman of the ancient metropolis in navigating these small vessels; how they were fain to shelter them- selves at night in the friendly harbours with which the river abounds, and we believe, to avoid adventuring through Haverstraw, bay or the Tappan sea, in a high wind.
When Stuart's little sloop rode into the bay of Canton, it was mis- taken for a tender from a large ship, and the bold mariner was afterwards familiarly called by the great Hong merchants, "the one-mast Captain."
Such is the story of Perdita as elaborated by the novelist from in- cidents collected by her brother while at Plimhimmon. Since the pub- lication of the story, such is its vraisemblance,-such the skill with which fact and fiction are intermingled,-that many of the denizens of the neighborhood of the young woman's debarkation and residence while in Talbot, receive the whole as truth without intermixture of error. A very estimable gentleman, a descendant of one of the actors in the little drama, has been heard to relate with particularity all the incidents of Miss Sedgwick's novelette, at the same time giving every evidence of his belief of the entire story, from the beginning to the end; thus affording another instance of the inventions of the romancist being ac- cepted as the chronicles of the historian. The following appears to be the unembellished story of the young woman, who for want of her true name must still be called Perdita, as it has been gathered from those now living who have heard it related by persons who were old enough to have received the account from those remembering the characters that figure conspicuously in the tale.
Somewhere about the year mentioned in the story, 1763, a ship lay off at anchor, in the Thames, waiting for her clearance papers, and ready to sail. There came on board a young person, apparently a lad, and asked to be shipped as a boy. He was accepted, and soon after the ship dropped down the river and went to sea. The name of the ship was the "Integrity;" that of the master John Coward, and she was bound for the port of Oxford, in the colony of Maryland. Capt. John Coward owned the estate of Plimhimmon, which was also his home when not at sea. This estate subsequently came into the possession of his son, Capt. Thomas Coward, who was master of the frigate "Choptank," that traded between Oxford and London, up to the time of the Revolution. By this Capt. Thos. Coward the plantation was sold in the year 1787 to the
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Hon. Matthew Tilghman, he who was so worthily conspicuous in our Revolutionary annals, as a home for his daughter, the wife of Col. Tench Tilghman, one of the staff officers of Gen'l Washington. Capt. John Coward of "Plimhimmon" and of the good ship "Integrity" has descendants in the State to this day. The name, though not the blood, is extinct in Talbot, but Mr. Thomas R. Coward, of Baltimore, is a representative of the family; while elsewhere, as in California, there are those who are proud to trace their origin to, and derive their patronymic from the bluff captain who for many years sailed out of the port of Oxford. The literary artist, in her portraiture of Capt. John Coward, for the sake of effect, has without doubt, limned with exaggerated lines his characteristic features, and touched with too warm a coloring his mental complexion. Doubtless he possessed the usual traits of the sea-faring men and ship-masters of his day, but he was not the coarse, illiterate and brutal despot of the quarter-deck he, in the story, is represented to have been. Some, who recollect the time when Miss Sedgwick's story was first published, say the members of the family were indignant that their ancestor should have been depicted with the lines, lights and shadows we see in the portrait, and were disposed to throw the blame of such a caricature upon that gentleman in Talbot who had given Mr. Sedgwick the outlines of the story. Indeed they attributed the authorship of the romance to Mr. Tilghman himself. We find, therefore, that when the tale was first printed in the "Gazette," some one to whom Capt. Coward was known, at least by direct tradition, for the purpose of correcting any unfavorable impression that might be given of the worthy Captain's character by the description of him by the authoress, prefaced the story with these words: "The person to whom the interesting and delicate fingered boy bound himself, was not only an intelligent sea-captain, but a well bred country gentleman, who owned the fine estate called Plimhimmon, adjoining the old town and port of Oxford, where his family resided. Several persons, still living, recollect him as a man of character, well esteemed, and of good feeling, who moved in the best. company of his day; and living on the fat of a choice soil aided by the resources and foreign nicknacks of a rich merchant ship, entertained liberally and handsomely."
The ship on board of which Perdita is said to have embarked, when leaving England, is known with almost absolute certainty to have been the "Integrity," as mentioned above, for according to a list of vessels receiving cargoes in, and sailing out of Choptank, Third Haven and Wye rivers, now in the possession of the writer, this ship is known to have been commanded by Capt. John Coward from a date at least as early as 1751, to 1771, and to have been trading between the city of London and the town of Oxford. It may not be amiss to say, parenthetically, that ships were accustomed to load in the Choptank as high up as Kingston, and as they often had to wait a considerable time to complete their cargoes, it was preferred they should lie in the fresh water of the upper Choptank, that they might escape the devastations of the boring worm, so destructive to sea-going vessels before the introduction of copper
.
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sheathing. Most of the tobacco, from the Eastern side of the county, at least, was shipped from the landings upon that river, and accordingly we find that the "Integrity" took in the bulk of her cargo at Dover, a town that has now disappeared, and at Barker's Landing, and com- pleted her loading at Oxford, where she obtained her clearance papers, that being the port of a large district, and at one time, for the whole Eastern Shore, where the Collector and Naval Officer were compelled to reside. The trade between our county and England was through London houses, almost exclusively, though occasionally there was a shipment to Liverpool and Glasgow. The consignees of the "Integrity" in London were, at various times Anthony Bacon, John Hanbury, Dickerson & Court, and Christopher Court & Company.
Before the ship had reached her destination it was discovered that the sailor boy who had shipped in the Thames was not a boy at all, but a girl in disguise. This coming to the knowledge of Captain Coward, he took care to protect her from insult during the remainder of the voyage, and after his arrival at Oxford, he placed her in the care of the ladies of his family at Plimhimmon. The girl persistently refused to tell her name, but her story as it was finally elicited from her was simply this: That she had formed a love attachment for a young man, a sailor on board the ship "Integrity," and knowing or believing that he was about to sail for America, she determined to accompany him. To accomplish her purpose she assumed the disguise in which she had been discovered, and made use of the ruse in which she had been detected, to be received on board the same ship with her lover.
Tradition rather confirms the statement in the romance that the girl's appearance and demeanor evinced that she had been well born and bred, and that she was unaccustomed to the hardships and priva- tions of humble life. The more charitable were disposed to attribute her escapade to her youth and the impetuosity of a passion that is so often indiscreet, the most so when most innocent: but her own sex, and particularly the ladies of Capt. Coward's family, were not so indul- gent, and rather looked upon her as one of those trollops from London, the like of which there were so many landed upon our shores. Accord- ingly, instead of receiving her upon terms of equality they placed her in their kitchen, and assigned to her the drudgery of a menial.
The girl soon discovered how terrible a mistake she had made, and repented sorely of her indiscretion. She had not even the consolation of the company of her lover, for either he was not on board the "Integrity" as she supposed, or he, with the sailors' usual inconstancy, deserted her. Tradition is here at fault. The hardships and degradation she was enduring, added to the poignancy of her regret for having forsaken her home, caused her to long for an opportunity to return to her parents in England. The near proximity of Plimhimmon to Oxford brought her often into communication with the sailors of the ships trading between London and this region of the country. Her strange adventure, which was the common talk of the nieghborhood and town, did not fail to reach the ears of the officers and men, who landing from the ships after
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long voyages, listened with avidity to all the gossip of the little port, and became eager to see the object of so much pity or so much scandal. It is not surprising that very soon she excited the sympathies, then engaged the affections, and finally enlisted the services of some suscept- ible, adventurous and courageous young sailor. Such a one she found in Stewart Dean, who is called in Miss Sedgwick's version, Frank Stuart, a sailor on board the ship "Hazard," Captain Adam Coxen. This ship "Hazard," or "Hazzard," as she is called in the list referred to above, was trading between the Thames and Choptank rivers from the year 1763 to 1769, her consignees being William and James Anderson, of London; and her commander Captain Coxen, like Captain Coward, was a resident of Talbot. The writer in the "Gazette," of whom men- tion is made above, says of him: "The few yet living who recollect the broad shoulders, the huge features, the lowering threatenings of the shaggy and tremendous brows, and the deep furrows of the weather beaten face of old Captain Coxen, say the picture as delineated in the story is to the life."
The young sailor held frequent stolen interviews with Perdita, at Plimhimmon, and their trysting place, under an apple tree in the orchard to the left of the mansion, or to the right as it is approached, up to a very recent time, used to be pointed out to the curious and the romantic. Here were arranged the plans for the escape of the young woman from those she regarded as her cruel oppressors, and for her concealment on board the ship, when she was ready to sail. How they accomplished their purposes tradition fails to inform us; all we certainly know is that she was surreptitiously conveyed on board the "Hazard," and carefully hidden away among the tobacco hogsheads; and that she made the voyage safely and without discovery, to her own and her gallant bene- factor's great satisfaction.
After the arrival of the "Hazard" at London, Perdita, still persisting in her refusal to reveal her name and parentage, made these last requests of Dean, which doubtless were more difficult to be granted than any she had hitherto proffered: that he would conduct her to the intersection of certain streets in the city which she named, and there leave her; that he would not attempt by any means to penetrate her secret, but as the only return that she was able to give for his kindness and devotion he would accept the simple thanks of the unhappy and misguided girl whom he had befriended. Mr. Dean, like a man of honor, respected her wishes, complied strictly with her requests, conducted her to the spot she had designated, and there bade her adieu. Of this Stewart Dean little is known. The writer in the "Gazette," to whom reference has been made more than once, and who, living much nearer than we to the time of the occurrences, seems to have been familiar with the events of the story as they actually happened, says :- "He is not only the mirror of chivalry, but has continued to be the very soul of truth." It would appear from this that the hero of the romance was known and still living at the date of its publication in 1826. There is a tradition too, pretty well substantiated, that after abandoning the sea, Stewart Dean settled
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in Albany, New York, where he was visited by Miss Sedgwick, and where he confirmed with his own lips, what she had previously learned of his adventures and those of Perdita.
It is a pity to spoil a pretty story. It is like breaking a statue or marring a painting. But Truth-a very Vandal in her insensibility to the charms of fancy's most living pictures, a very Puritan iconoclast in her remorseless fury against the most worshipped idols of the imagina- tion-demands imperatively it should be told, that all the incidents of the romance after the parting of the hero and heroine,-all that is said of Stewart's or Dean's commanding a privateer in our revolutionary war, of his capturing a British vessel, of his own subsequent captivity, of his meeting in the person of the Governor's wife the long lost Perdita, &c., &c .-
"Are of imagination all compact,"
-are pure fictions without a shadow of real foundation.
OLD PARISH LINES IN TALBOT COUNTY
The first "Act for the establishment of Religion" was passed by the provincial assembly of Maryland in 1692. It provided that every county in the province should be laid out into parishes.
Among the records of Talbot County court, held June 20, 1693 may be found the following: "The court proceeds to lay out the parishes for this county, as also to nominate and appoint the vestrymen for the several and respective parishes." Talbot County was laid out into three parishes, Saint Paul's Parish, Saint Peter's and Saint Michael's Parish. The Maryland Archives, Vol. 23, pages 21, 22, give the loca- tion of these separate parishes, as follows: "St. Paul's Parish begins at the head of Chester River and extends to the Court House, and from the Court House along the north side of Brewer's Branch to the head of the said branch, and from thence to John Jadwin's Branch being the north part of Tuckahoe."
The Court House referred to then stood on "Hopton" farm, near the mouth of Skipton Creek, about nine miles north of Talbot town, which later was called Easton to which the Court House was removed in 1710.
In an ancient book of Rent Rolls of Talbot County, in the custody of the Maryland Historical Society, may be found the following entry : "Hopton, surveyed June 1st, 1668, for Jonathan Hopkins, on the east side of the east branch of Back Wye 300 acres, possessed by Wm. Swetnam, and 20 acres by the County of Talbot for Court House land."
St. Peter's Parish begins at John Jadwin's Branch and extends to Oxford town.
St. Michael's Parish consists of Mill and Bay Hundreds and part of Island Hundred, that is to say, from the Court House downward.
The boundary lines of these three parishes not being definitely deter- mined, and disputes having arisen between the Rectors of each parish as to certain of their parishioners, who were in doubt as to which parish they properly belonged, the Court directed these parish lines to be surveyed and a certificate of same to be duly recorded.
The report of Mr. Turbutt, County Surveyor, appointed by the Jus- tice to lay off the lines of the three parishes, dated June, 1714, says, "St. Peter's parish to contain Third Haven Hundred, Bolingbroke Hundred and part of Tuckahoe Hundred, bounding on the north by a line drawn from the head of Brewer's Branch south 75 degrees east to the head
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HISTORY OF TALBOT COUNTY
of Jadwin's Branch." The Glebe road and Goldsborough neck road from Easton to All Saints church and Three Bridges is the line dividing St. Peter's and St. Michaels' Parishes.
Brewer's Branch empties into Skipton Creek, and is the same, long known as the Three Bridge Branch. Its source is about a mile west of Cordova. John Jadwin's branch is a part of the dividing line be- tween Talbot and Queen Anne's Counties, and has long been called and known as Lloyd's Branch. It empties into the Tuckahoe at a point opposite Hillsboro.
St. Paul's Parish comprised all of Talbot on the north and St. Michaels' Parish all of Talbot on the west of St. Peter's.
This Act of 1692 for the establishment of religion, however, failed to become a law, as it failed to receive the sanction of the British Sov- reigns, William and Mary. It provided that churches erected under its provision should be built at Ports. Oxford, at this date, was the principal port in the county and indeed upon the whole Eastern Shore. Here, therefore, it was expected and required a church should be built had this act become a law. Although contracted for, the church at Oxford was not built and the White Marsh Church built soon after the laying out of Talbot as a county in 1660, became the Parish Church of St. Peter's Parish. The first Vestrymen of Saint Peter's Parish appointed by the Court June 20, 1693, were Mr. Thomas Robins, Mr. Thomas Bowdle, Mr. George Robins, Mr. Nichols Lowe, Mr. Samuel Abbott, Jr., and Mr. Thos. Martin.
WHITE MARSH PARISH
In the year 1856, upon the petition of sundry persons living at or near the town of Trappe, consent was given by the Vestry of Saint Peter's, that a new parish should be organized within its limits, and on the 12th of May these proceedings were had with reference to this sub- ject: "David Kerr, Jr., Alexander Matthews and James Lloyd Cham- berlaine, representing persons anxious for a division of the parish, at their request, had an interview with the Vestry and asked that they would express their views upon a proper location of a divisional line. The Convention, at its session in the same month, granted the petition of the memorialists, and the new parish embracing the ancient parish church was organized with the northern boundary"
following a line drawn from the waters of Trippe's creek, at the junc- tion of the lands of Mrs. Hugh Hambleton, Barclay Haskins and Mat- thew Tilghman Goldsborough, due east to the waters of the Choptank river.
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At the convention of 1857, the organization was confirmed and the name given to the parish was Southern Saint Peters, subsequently, in 1858, changed to Whitemarsh Parish.
ALL SAINTS PARISH
In the year 1881, the parish of All Saints was laid off leaving St. Peter's Parish bounded as follows:
Old line from Choptank to head of Cove in Trippe's creek, then north with said creek and Tred Avon river by its middle to head of Lee Haven creek, thence by a straight line due north to Goldsborough Point at the mouth of Glebe creek, thence with said creek to its source, thence by a straight line to Wootenaux bridge, thence with Kings creek to its mouth, and south with Choptank river to place of beginning.
These boundaries have never been changed ..
WYE PARISH
The congregation at Wye continued to be a part of St. Paul's parish until April 9, 1860. On April 7, 1859, a preliminary meeting for the organization of a new parish was held at Wye Church. Those who were present at this momentous meeting were: Rev. Erastus F. Dashiell, rector of the parish; Richard B. Carmichael, C. C. Tilghman, William H. Forman, Henry Davis, Charles H. Tilghman, Dr. James Davidson, Dr. John C. Earle, Dr. Anselm W. Neal and R. B. Carmichael, Jr.
After a brief address by the rector, in which he set forth the necessity of the proposed division, it was decided that it be expedient that "all that portion of St. Paul's parish lying below a line beginning at a point where Reed's Creek empties into Chester River and running up that creek to its head, and thence with a line following the line dividing the Centreville from the Queenstown election district, to a point where it intersected the main road from Centreville to Easton, at or near a stream of water called Madam Elsey's Branch, and thence in a direct line to a point where the air line intercepts the boundary line between St. Paul's parish, Queen Anne's and Talbot Counties, and St. John's parish, Caro- line County, be formed into a separate parish, to be called Wye Parish."
Thus St. Luke's parish of Wye came into being.
OLD CHESTER AND WYE CHURCHES
Our earliest records extend no further back than to the year of our Lord 1694, two years after the Province of Maryland was organized into parishes, and registrars were appointed. At this period the parish embraced-with the exception of Kent Island-the whole of Queen Anne's County, including what is now Caroline County and a large por- tion of Talbot County than now belongs to it. There were then within its bounds, besides the Parish Church-called "Chester Church"- three Chapels of ease, viz .: the "Up-River Chapel" (upon the site of the present St. Luke's, Church Hill)-"Tuckahoe Chapel" (in what is now St. John's Parish, in the counties of Caroline and Queen Anne) and "St. Luke's, Wye." From the fact that the Parish Church very shortly afterwards needed repair, and the Chapel at Wye renewal, these structures, even at that early date, must have been standing for a num- ber of years. The probability is that the first Chester Church and the first St. Luke's at Wye, were the very earliest churches erected on the mainland of the Eastern Shore. We all know that Kent Island was the cradle of the Church of Maryland, the first settlement within its borders having been made there, and having been made by members of the Church of England. As early as 1618 Capt. William Claiborne, Secretary of State to the Virginia Colony, who is referred to in his ap- pointment to that office as "a man of quality and trust,"-came from Jamestown to Kent Island with a company of one hundred colonists. There were with this colony a clergyman of the Church of England, the Rev. Richard James, by whom, in all human probability, the foun- dation of the first Church in Maryland was laid, and whose death occurred in 1638. From the Island the colony spread, carrying of course, the Church with it, to the neighboring territory, and Chester and Wye Churches being nearest to the Island, were the first erected. From these data, we may safely infer that these churches were built about the year 1640-certainly not later than 1650.
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